The manufacturing triad was orihinsllu a constant trade route between three planets: Sigma, New Exford, and Weavon. The triad literally kept the three planets operational, as losing one planet in the trade route would result in a stock market crash between all three planets. Thus, no government ever even thought about backing out of the Trilateral Agreement. Unfortunately, when the Evoknights came, they totally annihilated Sigma, resulting in financial problems on both Exford and Weavon.
The first leg of the triad begins at Weavon, where slaves and other miners exploit Weavon's vast amount of valuable resources, like Rithsinium, Titanium, gold, Lithium, Neon, Radon, Radium, diamond, etc. These extremely valuable crystals and metals are then put on transport ships and flown off of Weavon to the second leg of the triad, New Exford. Exford, being a huge industrial planet, will use the resources to create new materials, such as starships, vehicles, and very strong metals for construction. Weavon, the planet as a whole, gets almost all of it's money by selling to Exfordian governments. Once the products are done and completed, the materials that aren't kept and used by Exford were then shipped to Sigma, once the final third leg of the trilateral journey. In return, Exford is payed quadrillions, and Weavon continued to get UWUC's support to fight against the Hunter's Trade Union.
But after Sigma exploded, the Manufacturing Triad pretty much ran into a brick wall. Weavon couldn't afford to just stop mining and wait for things to get resolved, so within months after Weavon's destruction. New Exford had billions of tons worth of extra material that didn't have anywhere to go, and thus their prices crashed to their lowest in centuries. Exfordian exporters were losing millions becuase they simply had nowhere to export to. Thankfully, The Fandors and Varsia agreed to buy a large portion of the material, while the rest would be sent at a discounted price to Tortuga. This new agreement once again stabilized the Manufacturing Triad.
Tradeing ships are very commonly boarded, hijacked, or destroyed by pirates during the first half of the first leg (while still in Weavon's space). Exford has very enforced borders, so pirating dwindles to nearly 0% in Exfordian territory. However, enough trade ships have been plundered in Weavon's space to become a very big problem. The HTU is most commonly behind the pirating.